Sir Nigel by Arthur Conan Doyle (good novels to read .TXT) 📕

“Is that not everything?” cried Chandos impatiently. “Can you not see, oh foolish Master Wintersole, that the French suspect we are about to make some attempt and that they have sent Peter the Red Ferret, as they have sent him many times before, to get tidings of whither we are bound? Now that he knows that the stores are for Calais, then the French near Calais will take his warning, and so the King’s whole plan come to nothing.”

“Then he will fly by water. We can stop him yet. He has not an hour’s start.”

“It may be that a boat awaits him at Rye or Hythe; but it is more like that he has all ready to depart from here. Ah, see yonder! I’ll warrant that the Red Ferret is on board!”

Chandos had halted in front of his inn, and now he pointed down to the outer harbor, which lay two miles off across the green plain. It was connected by a long winding canal with the inner dock at the base of the hill, upon which the town was built. Between the two horns formed by the short curving piers a small schooner was running out to sea, dipping and rising before a sharp southerly breeze.

“It is no Winchelsea boat,” said the Mayor. “She is longer and broader in the beam than ours.”

“Horses! bring horses!” cried Chandos. “Come, Nigel, let us go further into the matter.”

A busy crowd of varlets, archers, and men-at-arms swarmed round the gateway of the “Sign of the Broom Pod,” singing, shouting, and jostling in rough good-fellowship. The sight of the tall thin figure of Chandos brought order amongst them, and a few minutes later the horses were ready and saddled. A breakneck ride down a steep declivity, and then a gallop of two miles over the sedgy plain carried them to the outer harbor. A dozen vessels were lying there, ready to start for Bordeaux or Rochelle, and the quay was thick with sailors, laborers and townsmen and heaped with wine-barrels and wool-packs.

“Who is warden here?” asked Chandos, springing from his horse.

“Badding! Where is Cock Badding? Badding is warden!” shouted the crowd.

A moment later a short swarthy man, bull-necked and deep-chested, pushed through the people. He was clad in rough russet wool with a scarlet cloth tied round his black curly head. His sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders, and his brown arms, all stained with grease and tar, were like two thick gnarled branches from an oaken stump. His savage brown face was fierce and frowning, and was split from chin to temple with the long white wale of an ill-healed wound.

“How now, gentles, will you never wait your turn?” he rumbled in a deep angry voice. “Can you not see that we are warping the Rose of Guienne into midstream for the ebb-tide? Is this a time to break in upon us? Your goods will go aboard in due season, I promise you; so ride back into the town and find such pleasure as you may, while I and my mates do our work without let or hindrance.”

“It is the gentle Chandos!” cried some one in the crowd. “It is the good Sir John.”

The rough harbor-master changed his gruffness to smiles in an instant. “Nay, Sir John, what would you? I pray you to hold me excused if I was short of speech, but we port-wardens are sore plagued with foolish young lordlings, who get betwixt us and our work and blame us because we do not turn an ebb-tide into a flood, or a south wind into a north. I pray you to tell me how I can serve you.”

“That boat!” said Chandos, pointing to the already distant sail rising and falling on the waves. “What is it?”

Cock Badding shaded his keen eyes with his strong brows hand. “She has but just gone out,” said he. “She is La Pucelle, a small wine-sloop from Gascony, home-bound and laden with barrel-staves.”

“I pray you did any man join her at the very last?”

“Nay, I know not. I saw no one.”

“But I know,” cried a seaman in the crowd. “I was standing at the wharf-side and was nigh knocked into the water by a little redheaded fellow, who breathed as though he had run from the town. Ere I had time to give him a cuff he had jumped aboard, the ropes were cast off, and her nose was seaward.”

In a few words Chandos made all clear to Badding, the crowd pressing eagerly round.

“Aye, aye!” cried a seaman, “the good Sir John is right. See how she points. It is Picardy and not Gascony that she will fetch this journey in spite of her wine-staves.”

“Then we must lay her aboard!” cried Cock Badding. “Come, lads, here is my own Marie Rose ready to cast off. Who’s for a trip with a fight at the end of it?”

There was a rush for the boat; but the stout little seaman picked his men. “Go back, Jerry! Your heart is good, but you are overfat for the work. You, Luke, and you, Thomas, and the two Deedes, and William of Sandgate. You will work the boat. And now we need a few men of their hands. Do you come, little sir?”

“I pray you, my dear lord, to let me go!” cried Nigel.

“Yes, Nigel, you can go, and I will bring your gear over to Calais this night.”

“I will join you there, fair sir, and with the help of Saint Paul I will bring this Red Ferret with me.”

“Aboard, aboard! Time passes!” cried Badding impatiently, while already his seamen were hauling on the line and raising the mainsail. “Now then, sirrah! who are you? It was Aylward, who had followed Nigel and was pushing his way aboard.

“Where my master goes I go also,” cried Aylward, “so stand clear, mastershipman, or you may come by a hurt.”

“By Saint Leonard! archer,” said Cock Badding, “had I more time I would give you a lesson ere I leave land. Stand back and give place to others!”

“Nay, stand back and give place to me!” cried Aylward, and seizing Badding round the waist he slung him into the dock.

There was a cry of anger from the crowd, for Badding was the hero of all the Cinque Ports and had never yet met his match in manhood. The epitaph still lingers in which it was said that he “could never rest until he had foughten his fill.” When, therefore, swimming like a duck, he reached a rope and pulled himself hand over hand up to the quay, all stood aghast to see what fell fate would befall this bold stranger. But Badding laughed loudly, dashing the saltwater from his eyes and hair.

“You have fairly won your place, archer,” said he. “You are the very man for our work. Where is Black Simon of Norwich?”

A tall dark young man with a long, stern, lean face came forward. “I am with you, Cock,” said he, “and I thank you for my place.”

“You can come, Hugh Baddlesmere, and you, Hal Masters, and you, Dicon of Rye. That is enough. Now off, in God’s name, or it will be night ere we can come up with them!”

Already the headsails and the mainsail had been raised, while a hundred willing hands poled her off from the wharf. Now the wind caught her; heeling over, and quivering with eagerness like an unleashed hound she flew through the opening and out into the Channel. She was a famous little schooner, the Marie Rose of Winchelsea, and under her daring owner Cock Badding, half trader and half pirate, had brought back into port many a rich cargo taken in mid-Channel, and paid for in blood rather than money. Small as she was, her great speed and the fierce character of her master had made her a name of terror along the French coast, and many a bulky Eastlander or Fleming as he passed the narrow seas had scanned the distant Kentish shore, fearing lest that ill-omened purple sail with a gold Christopher upon it should shoot out suddenly from the dim gray cliffs. Now she was clear of the land, with the wind on her larboard quarter, every inch of canvas set, and her high sharp bows smothered in foam, as she dug through the waves.

Cock Badding trod the deck with head erect and jaunty bearing, glancing up at the swelling sails and then ahead at the little tilted white triangle, which stood out clear and hard against the bright blue sky. Behind was the lowland of the Camber marshes, with the bluffs of Rye and Winchelsea, and the line of cliffs behind them. On the larboard bow rose the great white walls of Folkestone and of Dover, and far on the distant sky-line the gray shimmer of those French cliffs for which the fugitives were making.

“By Saint Paul!” cried Nigel, looking with eager eyes over the tossing waters, “it seems to me, Master Badding, that already we draw in upon them.”

The master measured the distance with his keen steady gaze, and then looked up at the sinking sun. ” We have still four hours of daylight,” said he; “but if we do not lay her aboard ere darkness falls she will save herself, for the nights are as black as a wolf’s mouth, and if she alter her course I know not how we may follow her.”

“Unless, indeed, you might guess to which port she was bound and reach it before her.”

“Well thought of, little master!” cried Badding. “If the news be for the French outside Calais, then Ambleteuse would be nearest to Saint Omer. But my sweeting sails three paces to that lubber’s two, and if the wind holds we shall have time and to spare. How now, archer? You do not seem so eager as when you made your way aboard this boat by slinging me into the sea.”

Aylward sat on the upturned keel of a skiff which lay upon the deck. He groaned sadly and held his, green face between his two hands. “I would gladly sling you into the sea once more, mastershipman,” said he, “if by so doing I could get off this most accursed vessel of thine. Or if you would wish to have your turn, then I would thank you if you would lend me a hand over the side, for indeed I am but a useless weight upon your deck. Little did I think that Samkin Aylward could be turned into a weakling by an hour of salt water. Alas the day that ever my foot wandered from the good red heather of Crooksbury!”

Cock Badding laughed loud and long. “Nay, take it not to heart, archer,” he cried; “for better men than you or I have groaned upon this deck. The Prince himself with ten of his chosen knights crossed with me once, and eleven sadder faces I never saw. Yet within a month they had shown at Crecy that they were no weaklings, as you will do also, I dare swear, when the time comes. Keep that thick head of thine down upon the planks, and all will be well anon. But we raise her, we raise her with every blast of the wind!”

It was indeed evident, even to the inexperienced eyes of Nigel, that the Marie Rose was closing in swiftly upon the stranger. She was a heavy, bluff-bowed, broad-sterned vessel which labored clumsily through the seas. The swift, fierce little Winchelsea boat swooping and hissing through the waters